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Robert Emmet (4 March 177820 September 1803) was an Irish Republican, orator and rebel leader. Following the suppression of the United Irish uprising in 1798, he sought to organise a renewed attempt to overthrow the
British Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...
and Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, and to establish a nationally representative government. Emmet entertained, but ultimately abandoned, hopes of immediate French assistance and of coordination with radical militants in Great Britain. In Ireland, many of the surviving veterans of '98 hesitated to lend their support, and his rising in Dublin in 1803 proved abortive. Emmet’s Proclamation of the Provisional Government to the People of Ireland, his Speech from the Dock, and his "sacrificial" end on the gallows inspired later generations of Irish republicans. His memory was invoked by Patrick Pearse who in 1916 was again to proclaim a provisional government in Dublin.


Early life

Emmet was born at 109
St. Stephen's Green St Stephen's Green () is a garden square and public park located in the city centre of Dublin, Ireland. The current landscape of the park was designed by William Sheppard. It was officially re-opened to the public on Tuesday, 27 July 1880 by Ar ...
, in
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
on 4 March 1778. He was the youngest son of Dr Robert Emmet (1729–1802), physician to the
Lord Lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility ov ...
, and his wife, Elizabeth Mason (1739–1803). The Emmets were financially comfortable, members of the Protestant Ascendancy with a house at St Stephen's Green and a country residence near Milltown. Dr Emmet supported the cause of American independence and was a well-known figure on the fringes of the Irish patriot movement. Theobald Wolfe Tone, a friend of Emmet's elder brother,
Thomas Addis Emmet Thomas Addis Emmet (24 April 176414 November 1827) was an Irish and American lawyer and politician. In Ireland, in the 1790s, he was a senior member of the Society of United Irishmen as it planned for an insurrection against the British Crown ...
, and an advocate of more radical reform, including Catholic Emancipation, was a visitor to the house. So too, as a friend of his father, was Dr William Drennan, the original proposer of the "benevolent conspiracy--a plot for the people" that was to call itself, at Tone's suggestion, the Society of United Irishmen. Robert Emmet was educated first at Oswald's School in Dapping Court, near Golden Lane, and then at the ‘English grammar school’ of Samuel Whyte (qv) at 75 Grafton Street, a well-reputed school attended by the children of Dublin notables; here he learned oratory, fencing, astronomy, music, etc. One of his schoolmates was the poet and national bard
Thomas Moore Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852), was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist who was widely regarded as Ireland's "National poet, national bard" during the late Georgian era. The acclaim rested primarily on the popularity of his ''I ...
; Arthur Wellesley was a pupil a few years earlier. After this he was tutored by the Rev Mr Lewis of Camden Street. Emmet entered
Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...
in October 1793 as a precocious fifteen-year-old and excelled as a student of history and chemistry. In December 1797 he joined the College Historical Society. His brother Thomas and Wolfe Tone, preceding him in the society, had maintained its lively tradition (stretching back to
Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January ew Style, NS1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish Politician, statesman, journalist, writer, literary critic, philosopher, and parliamentary orator who is regarded as the founder of the Social philosophy, soc ...
) of defying the College's injunction against discussing questions of "modern politics".''Young Ireland'', Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co 1880 pg.34 Fellow Society member
Thomas Moore Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852), was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist who was widely regarded as Ireland's "National poet, national bard" during the late Georgian era. The acclaim rested primarily on the popularity of his ''I ...
recalled that men "of advanced standing and reputation for oratory, came to attend our debates, expressly for the purpose of answering
obert Obert may refer to the following people: Given name *Obert Bika (born 1993), Papua New Guinean football midfielder *Obert Logan (1941–2003), American football safety *Obert Mpofu, Zimbabwean politician *Obert A. Olson (1882–1938), American p ...
Emmet". His eloquence was unmatched. In the preface to his ''Irish Melodies'' (1837), he recounts Emmet "ardently" taking the side of Democracy in the debate "Whether an Aristocracy or a Democracy is most favourable to the advancement of science and literature?" and, in "another of his remarkable speeches", saying, "When a people, advancing rapidly in knowledge and power, perceive at last how far their government is lagging behind them, what then, I ask, is to be done in such a case? What, but to pull the government ''up'' to the people?" Robert Emmet is described by his contemporaries as slight in person; his features were regular, his forehead high, his eyes bright and full of expression, his nose sharp, thin, and straight, the lower part of his face slightly pock-marked, his complexion sallow.


Revolutionary career


Emissary for the new United Irish Executive

In April 1798, Emmet was exposed as the secretary of a secret college committee in support of the Society of United Irishmen (of which his brother and Tone were leading executive members). Rather than submit to questioning under oath that might inculpate others, he withdrew from Trinity. Emmet did not participate in the disordered United Irish uprising when it broke out in counties to the south and north of a heavily-garrisoned Dublin in May 1798. But after the suppression of the rebellion in the summer, and in communication with state prisoners held at Fort George in Scotland (including his brother), Emmet joined William Putnam McCabe in re-establishing a United Irish organisation. They sought to reconstruct the Society on a strict military basis, with its members chosen personally by its officers' meeting as the executive directorate. Following the example not only of Tone but also of James Coigly, their aim was to again solicit a French invasion on the prospective strength both of a rising in Ireland and of a radical conspiracy in Britain. To this end McCabe set out for France in December 1798, stopping first in London to renew contact with the network of English
Jacobins The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential List of polit ...
, the United Britons. On the new United Irish executive in Dublin, Emmet assisted veterans Thomas Wright (from April 1799, an informer) and Malachy Delaney (a former officer in the Austrian army), with a manual on insurgent tactics. In the summer of 1800, as secretary to Delaney, he set out on a secret mission to support McCabe's efforts in Paris. Through his foreign minister Talleyrand, Emmet and Delaney presented Napoleon with a memorial which argued that the parliamentary Union with Great Britain, imposed in the wake of the rebellion, had "in no way eased the discontent of Ireland", and with lessons drawn from the failure of '98, the United Irish were again prepared to act on the first news of a French landing. Their request for an invasion force almost double that commanded by Hoche in the aborted 1796 Bantry expedition possibly told against them. The First Consul had other priorities: securing a temporary respite from war (the treaties of Lunéville in 1801 and of Amiens, March 1802) and re-enslaving Haiti.


Connection with English radicals and with France

In January 1802 the arrival in Dublin of William Dowdall, following his release from Fort George, injected new life into the United Irishmen, and by March, contact was re-established with the United Britons network in England. In July, McCabe, returning to Paris from a visit to Dublin, brought news to
Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
that the United Irishmen were ready to rise again as soon as the continental war was renewed. In this expectation, preparations in England were intensified, including in London where Edward Despard sought to enlist in the republican conspiracy soldiers of the guards' regiment stationed at Windsor and the
Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic citadel and castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamle ...
. In October, Emmet (one of the few in exile against whom charges were not pending in Ireland) was dispatched from Paris to assist Dowdall with the Dublin preparations. In November 1802 the government moved on the conspirators in London. It did not discover the full extent of the plot, but the arrest of Despard and his execution in February 1803 may have weakened English support. Emmet's emissaries from Dublin found a cooler reception in London and the mill towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire than they had expected. In May 1803 the war with France was renewed. McCabe appeared to enjoy Napoleon's favour, and had had assurances of his intention to help Ireland secure her independence. From his own interviews with Napoleon, and with Talleyrand, in the autumn of 1802, Emmet emerged unconvinced. He was persuaded that the First Consul was considering a Channel crossing for August 1803, but that in the contest with England there would be scant consideration for Ireland's interests. (Sympathetic to the cause, Denis Taaffe proposed that if ever France took possession of Ireland she would trade it for a West Indian sugar island). Disputing with Arthur O'Connor, who in Paris insisted on a guarantee of a French landing, when war was resumed Emmet sent his own emissary, Patrick Gallagher, to Paris, to ask for "money, arms, ammunition and officers" but not for large numbers of troops. After the rising in Dublin misfired, and with no further prospects at home, in August Emmet did send Myles Byrne to Paris to do all he could to encourage an invasion. But at his trial, while he conceded that a "connection with France was, indeed, intended" it was to be "only as far as mutual interest would sanction require": no man should "calumniate" his memory by believing that he had "hoped for freedom from the government of France". Michael Fayne, a Kildare conspirator, later testified that Emmet used talk of French assistance only to "encourage the lower orders of people", as he often heard him say that as bad as an English government was, it was better than a French one", and that his object was "an independent state brought about by Irishmen only".


Decision to proceed with a rising in Dublin

After his return to Ireland in October 1802, assisted by Anne Devlin (ostensibly his housekeeper), and with a legacy of £2,000 left to him by his father, Emmet laid preparations for a rising. According to the later recollection of Myles Byrne, on St Patrick's Day, 17 March 1803, Emmet gave a stirring speech to his confederates justifying the renewed resort to arms. If Ireland had cause in 1798, he argued it had only been compounded by the legislative union with Britain. As long as Ireland retained in its own parliament a "vestige of self-government", its people might entertain the hope of representation and reform. But now "in consequence of the accursed union":
ven-eights of the population have no right to send a member of their body to represent them, even in a foreign parliament, and the other eight part of the population are the tools and taskmasters, acting for the cruel English government and their Irish Ascendancy--a monster still worse, if possible than foreign tyranny.
In April 1803, James (Jemmy) Hope and Myles Byrne arranged conferences, at which Emmet promised arms, with Michael Dwyer (Devlin’s cousin), who still maintained a guerrilla resistance in the Wicklow Mountains, and with Thomas Cloney, a veteran of the Wexford rebellion in '98. Hope and Russell headed north to rouse the United veterans of Down and Antrim. In Dublin, Emmet believed his hand was forced on the 16th of July when gunpowder in the rebel arms depot in Patrick Street accidentally detonated, arousing the suspicion of the authorities. He persuaded the majority of the leadership to bring forward the date for the rising to the evening of Saturday, July 23, a festival day, which would provide cover for the gathering of their forces. The plan, without any further consideration of French aid, was to storm
Dublin Castle Dublin Castle () is a major Government of Ireland, Irish government complex, conference centre, and tourist attraction. It is located off Dame Street in central Dublin. It is a former motte-and-bailey castle and was chosen for its position at ...
, make hostage of Privy Council, and signal the country to rise.


Moved by "a sinister hand"?

As preparations were made early in July, according to one of his many biographers, Helen Landreth, Emmet believed that "he had been tricked into the conspiracy", that he had been "a pawn moved by some sinister hand". Such may have been the suggestion of Hope's later remarks to the historian R. R. Madden. Emmet, according to Hope, realised that "the men of rank and fortune" who had urged him to head a new rising had had ulterior motives, but that, with Russell, he nonetheless placed his confidence in the great mass of the people to rise. This would have been despite Emmet's recognition that: "No leading Catholic is committed. We are all Protestants". Parts of his plan were known, through spies and informers, to an undersecretary at Dublin Castle, Alexander Marsden and in turn by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, William Wickham. Yet they kept reports from the Lord Lieutenant and stayed the hand of the Town Major, Henry Sirr, who had wished to move against the rebels following the St. Patrick Street explosion. Drawing on research in the 1880s by Dr Thomas Addis Emmet of
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, a grandson of Emmet's elder brother, Landreth believes that Marsden and Wickham conspired with William Pitt, then out of office but anticipating his return as Prime Minister, to encourage the most dangerously disaffected in Ireland to fatally compromise the prospects for an effective revolt by acting in advance of a French invasion. Landreth believes that Emmet was their unwitting instrument, drawn home from Paris for the purpose of organising a premature rising by the calculated misrepresentations of William Putnam McCabe and Arthur O'Connor. Her evidence, however, is circumstantial, relying not least on Pitt's reputed cynicism in accepting the prospect of a rebellion in 1798 in order to frighten the Irish Parliament into dissolving itself.Landreth (1948), pp x-xi Emmet biographer, Patrick Geoghegan, finds it entirely "implausible" that Pitt, in or out of office, would risk the credibility of the union he had accomplished, and perhaps much else, for "some negligible security gains". He argues that Wickham was genuinely complacent and notes that, while he may have too long delayed moving against the rebels in the hope of discovering the full scope of their conspiracy, on the 23rd Marsden did sound the alarm in advance of the day's action. Madden, however, did suggest that the Orange- Ascendancy faction around Marsden, alarmed by Pitt's attempt to include Catholic emancipation in the Acts of Union, had hopes that insurrectionary attempt would harden British policy.


Proclamation of the Provisional Government

Emmet issued a
proclamation A proclamation (Lat. ''proclamare'', to make public by announcement) is an official declaration issued by a person of authority to make certain announcements known. Proclamations are currently used within the governing framework of some nations ...
in the name of the "Provisional Government". Calling upon the Irish people "to show the world that you are competent to take your place among the nations . . . as an independent country", Emmet made clear in the proclamation that they would have to do so "without foreign assistance": "That confidence which was once lost by trusting to external support . . . has been again restored. We have been mutually pledged to each other to look only to our own strength". The Proclamation also contained "allusions to the widening of the political agenda of Emmet and the United Irishmen following the failure of 1798". In addition to democratic parliamentary reform, the Proclamation announced that tithes were to be abolished and the land of the established
Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland (, ; , ) is a Christian church in Ireland, and an autonomy, autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the Christianity in Ireland, second-largest Christian church on the ...
nationalised. This, it has been suggested, marked the influence upon Emmet of Thomas Russell, although as a radical campaigner for economic and social reform, Russell might have wished to go further. Emmet remained intent on giving the rising a universal appeal across both class and sectarian divisions: "We are not against property – we war against no religious sect – we war not against past opinions or prejudices – we war against English dominion." The Government sought to suppress all 10,000 printed copies of the Proclamation. Only two are known to survive.


The Rising

At 11 on the morning of 23 July 1803, Emmet showed men from Kildare an arsenal of pikes, grenades, rockets, and gunpowder-packed hollowed beams (these were to be dragged out onto the streets to prevent cavalry charges). They noted only the absence of recognisable firearms and were unimpressed by Emmet, a "youngster" whose inexperience would place "the rope around the neck of decent men". They left to turn back other Kildare insurgents on the road to Dublin. The plan to surprise
Dublin Castle Dublin Castle () is a major Government of Ireland, Irish government complex, conference centre, and tourist attraction. It is located off Dame Street in central Dublin. It is a former motte-and-bailey castle and was chosen for its position at ...
, and seize the
viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the Anglo-Norman ''roy'' (Old Frenc ...
, was botched when the assailants prematurely revealed themselves. By evening Emmet, Malachy Delaney and Myles Byrne (turned out for the occasion in gold-trimmed green uniforms) were outside their Thomas Street arsenal – with just 80 men. R.R. Madden describes "a motley assemblage of armed men, a great number of whom were, if not intoxicated, under the evident excitement of drink". Unaware that John Allen was approaching with a band, according to one witness, of 300, and shaken by the sight of a lone
dragoon Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat wi ...
being pulled from his horse and piked to death, Emmet told the men to disperse. He had already stood down sizeable insurgent groups straddling the main suburban roads by pre-arranged signal, a solitary rocket. Sporadic clashes continued into the night. In one incident, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Lord Kilwarden, was dragged from his
carriage A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1 ...
and stabbed by pikes. Found still alive, he was taken to a watch-house where he died shortly thereafter. Kilwarden had used his position to help his cousin,
Wolfe Tone Theobald Wolfe Tone, posthumously known as Wolfe Tone (; 20 June 176319 November 1798), was a revolutionary exponent of Irish independence and is an iconic figure in Irish republicanism. Convinced that, so long as his fellow Protestantism in ...
, to avoid prosecution in 1794. He was nonetheless reviled for the prosecution and hanging of William Orr in 1797 and, in the wake of 1798, of several Catholic Defenders. Kilwarden's nephew, the Rev. Mr Wolfe, was also killed, although his daughter was not harmed. Emmet fled the city arriving in Rathfarnham with a party of 16 men. When he heard that Wicklowmen were still planning to rise, he issued a countermanding order to prevent needless violence. Instead he ordered Byrne to Paris to again solicit the French.


Capture, trial, and execution

While Emmet hid in Rathfarnham, yeomen sought to extract information from Anne Devlin, prodding her with bayonets and half hanging her until she passed out. Had he not insisted on taking his leave of his fiancée Sarah Curran (daughter of the disapproving John Philpot Curran) he may have succeeded in joining Dowdall and Byrne in France. Emmet was captured on 25 August and taken to the Castle, then removed to Kilmainham. Vigorous but ineffectual efforts were made to procure his escape. Emmet was tried and convicted for
high treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its d ...
on 19 September. The evidence against him had been overwhelming, but the Crown took the extra precaution of suborning his defence attorney, Leonard McNally, for £200 and a pension. McNally's assistant Peter Burrowes could not be bought and represented Emmet as best he could. Emmet's instruction, however, was not to offer a defence: he would not call any witnesses, "or to take up the time of the court". When on announcing this, McNally proposed that the trial was concluded, the prosecuting counsel William Plunket took to his feet. In what was widely regarded as an unnecessary attack on a doomed man, Plunket, who was to see himself appointed
Solicitor-General A solicitor general is a government official who serves as the chief representative of the government in courtroom proceedings. In systems based on the English common law that have an attorney general or equivalent position, the solicitor general ...
, mocked Emmet as the deluded leader of a conspiracy encompassing "the bricklayer, the old clothes man, the hodman and the hostler". Emmet's '' Speech from the Dock'' is especially remembered for his closing remarks. Historian Patrick Geoghehan has identified over seventy different versions of the text, but in an early printing (1818) based on notes taken by Burrowes, Emmet concludes:
I am here ready to die. I am not allowed to vindicate my character; no man shall dare to vindicate my character; and when I am prevented from vindicating myself, let no man dare to calumniate me. Let my character and my motives repose in obscurity and peace, till other times and other men can do them justice. Then shall my character be vindicated; then may my epitaph be written.
Chief Justice Lord Norbury sentenced Emmet to be
hanged, drawn and quartered To be hanged, drawn and quartered was a method of torture, torturous capital punishment used principally to execute men convicted of High treason in the United Kingdom, high treason in medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland. The convi ...
, as was customary for conviction of treason. The following day, 20 September, Emmet was executed in Thomas Street in front of St. Catherine's. He was hanged and then beheaded once dead. As family members and friends of Robert had also been arrested, including some who had nothing to do with the rebellion, no one came forward to claim his remains out of fear of arrest. On the eve of his execution, Emmet wrote from Kilmainham to the
Chief Secretary for Ireland The Chief Secretary for Ireland was a key political office in the British Dublin Castle administration, administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Lieutenant, and officially the "Chief Secretar ...
, William Wickham, whose "fairness" he acknowledged. He appears to have made a profound impression. In December Wickham resigned his post, confessing to friends that "no consideration upon earth" could induce him "to remain after having maturely reflected" on the contents of the note he had received. He could not enforce laws "unjust, oppressive and unchristian" and intolerable to the memory of a man he had been "compelled by the duty of my office to pursue to the death". Wickham was persuaded that Emmet had been attempting to save Ireland from "a state of depression and humiliation" and that, had he himself been an Irishman, he "should most unquestionably have joined him".


Burial and Shelley's later eulogy

Emmet's remains were first delivered to Newgate Prison and then back to Kilmainham Gaol, where the jailer was under instructions that if no one claimed them they were to be buried in a nearby hospital's burial grounds called Bully's Acre. Family tradition has it that in 1804, under cover of the burial of his sister, Mary Anne Holmes, Emmet's remains were removed from Bully's Acre and re-interred in the family vault (since demolished) at St Peter's Church in Aungier Street. After searching for Emmet's grave in Dublin, early in 1812,
Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
revised his elegiac poem “The Monarch's Funeral: An Anticipation”: "For who was he, the uncoffined slain, /That fell in Erin's injured isle /Because his spirit dared disdain/ To light his country's funeral pile?" In "On Robert Emmet's Grave" Shelley proposed that, because unknown, Emmet's grave would "remain unpolluted by fame ''/''Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune caressed, /Shall pass like a mist from the light of thy name.''"'' When Shelley returned to London from Dublin in 1812, it was with an account of Emmet's trial containing his famous speech, and Emmet appears again as the “patriot” in '' The Devil's Walk,'' a lengthy broadside against a corrupt and un-reforming government. (At the same time, while in Dublin, Shelley had gone round streets and pubs of the city handing out ''An Address, to the Irish People,'' a 22-page pamphlet in which he pleaded with the Irish people not to repeat Emmet's attempt: "I do not wish to see things changed now, because it cannot be done without violence, and we may assure ourselves that none of us are fit for any change, however good, if we condescend to employ force in a cause we think right"). A search of the family vault at St Peter's Church in 1903 could not find Emmet's remains, and his actual burial place is still unknown, inspiring the phrase, "Do not look for him. His grave is Ireland."


Legacy

Emmet’s rebellion infuriated Lord Castlereagh because he "could not see the change that his own great measure the Union has effected in Ireland". Despite having so badly misfired, the 1803 rising suggested that the Act of Union was not going to be the palliative Castlereagh and Prime Minister William Pitt had intended. Castlereagh advised that "the best thing would be to go into no detail whatever upon the case, to keep the subject clearly standing on its own narrow base of a contemptible insurrection without means or respectable leaders", an instruction Plunket appears to have followed in Emmet's prosecution. This was to be a stance taken not only by unionists.
Daniel O'Connell Daniel(I) O’Connell (; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Irelan ...
who was to lead the struggle for Catholic Emancipation and for repeal of the Union in the decades following Emmet's death, roundly condemned the resort to "physical force". O'Connell's own programme of mobilising public opinion, fuelled by sometimes violent rhetoric and demonstrated in "monster meetings", might have suggested that constitutionalism and physical force were complementary rather than antithetical. But O'Connell remained content with his dismissal of Emmet in 1803 as an instigator of bloodshed who had forfeited any claim to "compassion". Emmet's political rehabilitation begins in the
Famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...
-years of the 1840s with the Young Irelanders. In 1846 they had finally broken with O'Connell declaring that if Repeal could not be carried by moral persuasion and peaceful means, a resort to arms would be "a no less honourable course". The Young Irelander publisher Charles Gavan Duffy repeatedly reprinted Michael James Whitty's popular chapbook ''Life, Trial and Conversations of Robert Emmet Esq.'' (1836), and promoted R.R. Madden's ''Life and Times of Robert Emmet'' (1847) which, despite its devastating account of the Thomas Street fiasco, was hagiographic. In carrying forward the tradition of physical-force republicanism from the debacle of the Young Irelander " Famine Rebellion" in 1848, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (the
Fenian The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood. They were secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries ...
s) also carried forward admiration for Emmet. On the $20 bonds they issued in 1866 in the United States in the name of the Irish Republic, his profile appears opposite that of Tone. Robert Emmet's older brother,
Thomas Addis Emmet Thomas Addis Emmet (24 April 176414 November 1827) was an Irish and American lawyer and politician. In Ireland, in the 1790s, he was a senior member of the Society of United Irishmen as it planned for an insurrection against the British Crown ...
emigrated to the United States shortly after Robert's execution. He eventually served as the New York State Attorney General. His descendants (who included the prominent American portrait painters Lydia Field Emmet, Rosina Emmet Sherwood, Ellen Emmet Rand, and Jane Emmet de Glehn) helped advance his standing among the Irish diaspora, which in turn may have been one factor in ensuring that he was one among the "ghosts" invoked in the run-up to 1916 Easter Rising. In the Emmet Commemoration speech he delivered in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in March 1914, Pearse described how the spirit of Irish patriotism called in Emmet "to a dreamer" and "awoke a man of action"; called to "a student and a recluse" and brought forth "a leader of men"; "called to one who loved the ways of peace" and found "a revolutionary". Emmet was a man unwilling to "surrender of one jot or shred of our claim to freedom even in return for all the blessings of the British peace". His attempt in 1803 was to be regarded, not as a failure but as "a triumph for that deathless thing we call Irish Nationality". As Pearse parleyed with the British for terms at the end of Easter week, 1916, his Dublin commander
James Connolly James Connolly (; 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916) was a Scottish people, Scottish-born Irish republicanism, Irish republican, socialist, and trade union leader, executed for his part in the Easter Rising, 1916 Easter Rising against British rule i ...
is recalled lying wounded in a house in Moore Street with a portrait of Emmet hanging over his bed.


Representation in popular culture

In a speech on Emmet in New York City in 1904,
W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...
famously observed that "Emmet died and became an image". This was the work first, and foremost, of
Thomas Moore Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852), was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist who was widely regarded as Ireland's "National poet, national bard" during the late Georgian era. The acclaim rested primarily on the popularity of his ''I ...
. In his popular ballad "O! Breathe Not His Name", Moore made his former Trinity College friend the touchstone of national sentiment: "Oh breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade, / Where cold and unhonoured his relics are laid! ../ And the tear we shed, though secret it rolls, Shall keep his memory green in our souls". Dwelling upon the heartache of Sarah Curran, his "She is Far From the Land Where Her Young Hero Sleeps" also made Emmet an icon of romantic love. In Irish America where, together with Emmet's Speech from the Dock, "O! Breathe Not His Name" became part of the canon of parochial education, Moore had innumerable imitators. Of these, one of the most ambitious was John Boyle O'Reilly, a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood who had escaped from penal servitude in
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
. O'Reilly wrote a publicly performed eighty-four line poem, "The Patriot's Grave" (1878) in which he both echoes the defiance of Emmet's last words while attempting to bring the defence of physical force within a broader tradition that embraced constitutional agitation (to add Emmet to a Pantheon that included " Grattan,
Flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...
and Curran"). Emmet was also a frequent character on the patriotic stage. Typical of his green-uniform presentation was Brandon Tynon's melodrama, ''Robert Emmet, the Days of 1803'', which premiered on Broadway in 1902. In the nineteenth century, the Emmet story also found its way into prose. On both sides of the Atlantic John Doherty's 1836 ''Life, Trial and Conversation and Times of Robert Emmet'', and R. R. Madden's 1844 ''Life and Time of Robert Emmet'' became the standard references. With less patience for historical or political background, what tended to be drawn out in subsequent works was the notion of "pure sacrifice". In ''Robert Emmet, A Survey of his Rebellion and of His Romance'' (1904), Louise Imogen Guiney classes Emmet with
Charlotte Corday Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont (27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793), known simply as Charlotte Corday (), was a figure of the French Revolution who assassinated revolutionary and Jacobins, Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat on 13 July 1793. Cor ...
and John Brown. In the early twentieth century, Moore's Emmet appeared in pioneering film. While focusing on the Emmet-Curran love story, the 1911 Thanhouser film (USA) ''Robert Emmet'' depicts Emmet's expulsion from Trinity College, his meeting with Napoleon, his part in the rising and his capture, trial and execution. Some of the same storyline features in '' Ireland a Nation'' (1914) written and produced in London and Ireland by Walter MacNamara, and Sidney Olcott's '' Bold Emmett Ireland's Martyr'' (1915, Sid Films, USA). Many decades later there was a step away from hagiography. In her screen drama ''Anne Devlin'' (1984), the Irish
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
filmmaker Pat Murphy offers an implicit criticism of patriotic politics that operates "largely at the level of signs and representations". In one scene, Emmet enters a room as Devlin is holding up his splendid green uniform in front of a mirror. Asked what she thinks of it, Devlin (cousin of the guerrilla leader Michael Dwyer) replies that it looks like a green version of an English Redcoat, and will be seen "a mile off". "We should", she argues, "be rebel as ourselves’". Emmet is "bold Robert" in the song '' Back Home in Derry'', written by Bobby Sands in
HM Prison Maze HM Prison Maze (previously Long Kesh Detention Centre, and known colloquially as the Maze or H-Blocks) was a prison in Northern Ireland that was used to house paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles from August 1971 to September 2000. On 15 ...
before his fatal hunger strike in 1981. The lyrics, describing the feelings of rebels convicts as leave Ireland for Australia, were recorded by Christy Moore.


Honours

Places named after Emmet in the United States include
Emmetsburg Emmetsburg is a city in Palo Alto County, Iowa, Palo Alto County, Iowa, United States. The population was 3,706 at the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the county seat of Palo Alto County. Emmetsburg is located around th ...
, Iowa; Emmet, Nebraska; Emmet County, Iowa; Emmett, Michigan and Emmet County, Michigan, and Emmet Street in the historic French neighborhood of Soulard, St. Louis. The Robert Emmet Elementary School in
Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
was named for him. Two time All Ireland Club Camogie Champions Robert Emmet's GAC Slaughtneil is named after him. Emmet Park in Savannah, Georgia, was named after Emmet in 1902 in preparation for the centennial of his death. Statues were erected in his honour: * A life-size bronze statue of Robert Emmet by Jerome Connor stands in
St Stephen's Green St Stephen's Green () is a garden square and public park located in the city centre of Dublin, Ireland. The current landscape of the park was designed by William Sheppard. It was officially re-opened to the public on Tuesday, 27 July 1880 by ...
, Dublin, the parkland beside which Emmet was born. A copy stands in Emmetsburg, Iowa. * A bronze statue of Emmet by Jerome Connor stands in Washington, DC on Embassy Row (Massachusetts Avenue NW and S Street NW). A public commemoration of Emmet's execution and legacy is held annually on the fourth Sunday in September by the Irish American Unity Conference. * A copy of this statue was installed on the Music Concourse in front of the
California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...
in
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
's
Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond District, San Francisco, Richmond and Sunset District, San Francisco, Sunset districts on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the Lis ...
. File:Robert Emmet.JPG, Bronze statue of Robert Emmet, 1916, by Jerome Connor, from the collection of the
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...
. It is installed in
Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...
's Embassy Row. File:Robert Emmet, Stephens Green, Dublin.jpg, Statue of Robert Emmet in St Stephens Green,
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
File:Photo of Robert Emmet statue San Francisco Golden Gate Park.jpg, Reproduction of Robert Emmet statue in San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond District, San Francisco, Richmond and Sunset District, San Francisco, Sunset districts on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the Lis ...
* A statue of Robert Emmet is in the courthouse square in Emmetsburg, Iowa.


See also

* Despard Plot * Irish Rebellion of 1803 * John Allen * Thomas Russell * List of monuments and memorials to the Irish Rebellion of 1803


References


Bibliography

* Elliott, Marianne, (2004) ''Robert Emmet: The Making of a Legend'' * Geoghegan, Patrick. (2004). ''Robert Emmet: A Life'' * Gough, Hugh & David Dickson, editors, (1991). ''Ireland and the French Revolution'' * Landreth, Helen, (1948), ''The Pursuit of Robert Emmet'' * McMahon, Sean, (2001) ''Robert Emmet'' * O Bradaigh, Sean, (2003). ''Bold Robert Emmet 1778–1803'' * O'Donnell, Ruan, (2003). ''Robert Emmet and the Rebellion of 1798'' * _____.(2003) ''Robert Emmet and the Rising of 1803'' * _____.(2003). ''Remember Emmet: Images of the Life and Legacy of Robert Emmet'' * Smyth, Jim, (1998). ''The Men of No Property: Irish Radicals and Popular Politics in the Late Eighteenth Century'' * Stewart, A.T.Q. (1993). ''A Deeper Silence: The Hidden Origins of the United Irish Movement''


External links


Robert Emmet

Robert Emmet
index of articles in ''History Ireland'' * *
Emmet's 'Proclamation of Independence'
* Robert Emmet's Speech (Unabridged) From the Dock
Bronze sculpture of Robert Emmet (1916), by Jerome Stanley Connor, in Emmet Park, Washington, DC


* [http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=123851K26E758.103053&profile=ariall&uri=link=3100009~!1193668~!3100001~!3100002&aspect=Browse&menu=search&ri=2&source=~!siartinventories&term=Robert+Emmet%2C&index=ALTIT Smithsonian American Art Museum's Art Inventories Catalog record of the Robert Emmet Statue in Washington, D.C.] * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Emmet, Robert 1778 births 1803 deaths Emmet family Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Executed people from County Dublin Executed revolutionaries Irish Anglicans 19th-century executions by the United Kingdom People executed by the United Kingdom by hanging Protestant Irish nationalists United Irishmen Politicians from Dublin (city) People on Irish postage stamps